Cleaning cylinder shortcut?

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Skippy

New member
The downside of cleaning my S&W model 60 snub has always been the time it takes to clean the cylinder.

Perhaps I'm anal, but I like having no carbon marks anywhere on stainless, so today I used a .45 cal brush dipped in solvent on the end of a cleaning rod, attached to a cordless drill. A few passes through each chamber really seemed to do the trick.

An I am idiot?

_______________
*I'd give right arm to be ambidextrous*
 
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JohnKSa

Administrator
Just be careful. The steel of the cylinder is surprisingly soft, if you get the twisted steel center of the brush against the cylinder by accident with the drill turning, it's going to make a mess of things.

One other option that's pretty easy is to get an empty case and bell the mouth just slightly. Then you can insert it and use it as a scraper to clean the chambers.

Hoppes Elite (standard fluid, not the foaming variety) has done a pretty good job in terms of taking carbon off stainless steel, and there are other carbon cutters out there with a good reputation. I used to do a lot of scrubbing when I cleaned my guns and be very concerned with removing every last bit of carbon staining from the cylinder, now I tend to let solvents do the work and not worry as much if there's a little bit of black around the front of the cylinder.

I do like the chambers very clean though--I want the empties to eject as easily as possible.
 
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fastbolt

New member
When I was a young shooter, and then later a young cop, I was very 'regimented' about thoroughly cleaning my blued and stainless guns. I removed lead fouling from the charge holes and religiously scrubbed off carbon marks from the front of the cylinder faces. Ditto scouring stainless slides and barrels on my pistols.

Later, after many years of being trained and serving as a LE firearms instructor and armorer, including going through one of the S&W revolver armorer classes (for the DAO snubs at that time), I've relaxed a bit. :D

I no longer heavily scrub the cylinder faces to remove carbon marks on stainless cylinders. I just remove any lead (or other) fouling buildup, by hand-powered brushes and some CLP's. The black carbon rings on the cylinder faces get lightly brushed and wiped, but not scoured, and remain to some visible degree. I think of them as proof I use my revolvers. ;)

The inside of the charge holes aren't what I would've considered 'pristinely clean' in my younger years, and I don't use a power tool to clean them (not even using softer copper or brass brushes). I keep them clean enough so there's no trouble inserting fresh rounds, even when the cylinder heats up from shooting, and empty cases are easily extracted.

Ditto lightly cleaning around the rear of the barrel and the surrounding area inside the frame window, where I use a plastic/nylon or copper brush (except on aluminum frames). I'm especially careful not to use any cleaning methods/tools that might damage my aluminum-framed revolvers. I don't own any revolvers that have titanium cylinders, but if I did, I'd be very, very careful cleaning them so they wouldn't become damaged.

Something else I came to appreciate over time is that blue steel and black-finished guns look cleaner, sooner. ;) Makes it easier. :)

Just some thoughts.

FWIW, when I was a working instructor and served as a pistol, rifle, shotgun and revolver armorer, I saw far more 'gun problems' that were the result of overzealous, improper or inattentive 'cleaning methods' than I ever saw as the result of actual gun problems. Shooter-caused "cleaning & maintenance" problems typically far outnumbered actual gun problems, abuse/neglect and ammo problems.
 
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44 AMP

Staff
Flitz on a soft cloth will remove the carbon rings on a STAINLESS STEEL cylinder face with some light rubbing.

Don't do it on blued steel, if you want to keep the bluing....
 
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Mike38

New member
This reminds me, I need to clean my guns one of these days.
Click to expand...

Same here. Maybe. Someday. My range handguns (not carry pistol) get cleaned when they start malfunctioning. Over cleaning causes more wear than shooting them dirty. My carry pistol gets cleaned after each time shooting.
 
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rclark

New member
I use the brush chucked into a drill once in awhile too. Sometimes it just easier to clean out the hard to remove deposits with it (stainless or blued) :) . Like others I only clean when I feel they need it or going into storage. As for the cylinder face rings, what doesn't come off with a wipe of Hoppes #9, stays... blued or stainless. It never builds up and will always come back... if you shoot 'em that is.
 
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Sevens

New member
I wouldn't say that you're an idiot. If you are asking if this is a good idea, I say it's a very bad idea. I think it's a bad idea in three ways. These are merely my opinions:

1) no power tools on revolvers please. Top shelf professionals are in a better place to use power tools on firearms and I suspect even then it's extremely rare that they would and for certain, not for this project

2) cleaning the cylinder face literally only lasts for five shots on a J-frame and then your work is GONE. Consider that you may be incrementally removing metal from the face of your cylinder.

3) if you putting this much work in to the cylinder, I surely hope you are taking the cylinder off the yoke or you may be stressing this part also.

More guns are ruined or damaged from overzealous cleaning than from neglect.
 
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Electrod47

New member
On my Stainless Steel Ruger Security 6 w/2 1/2" barrel I use an electricians contact cleaner which is a rubber eraser stick that is diamond impregnated. It works perfect. No muss no fuss and hand powered,
 
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FITASC

New member
Don't use an abrasive on the cylinder face; if a normal solvent doesn't do it, stop worrying about. I shoot nothing but 38s in my 357 and a few passes with a brush and solvent cleans them right up - the most difficult ones are the cylinders on my S&W K-22 Masterpieces
 
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zeke

New member
rodfac said:
Plus one on Fastbolt's excellent post...Rod
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Am thinking his post earned a plus 2, or more. Have used a damp cloth to quickly remove carbon from the outside (not the face) of a cylinder when it was heated up from firing. Carbon is pretty soft when hot. This also works on necks of fired brass.
 
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Dfariswheel

New member
To clean the cylinder face of STAINLESS STEEL ONLY revolvers, a "Lead-Away" cloth is the best.
These just wipe leading, copper, and carbon fouling off.
Buy online or at many gun stores.

Note that they also wipe bluing right off, and will damage bright nickel or electroless nickel.
 
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Nick_C_S

New member
Plus one on Fastbolt's excellent post.
Click to expand...

I think we're up to +3 now.

I went through a phase where I cleaned my cylinder's charge holes as prescribed by our OP. But it never sat well with me and it didn't entirely remove the lead in the throats.

I solved the problem by using only plated and jacketed bullets. In more than three decades of shooting lead bullets through revolvers (at least 100k rounds), I have never fired even one that didn't lead the barrel and/or cylinder throats. (Let's not go down the road of BHN and bullet fit, etc. - I've tried every combination imaginable. None ever worked - none - ever.)

As for the cylinder face, I used to do this:
Flitz on a soft cloth will remove the carbon rings on a STAINLESS STEEL cylinder face with some light rubbing.
Click to expand...
This ^ definitely works. But at some point, I decided that it may be slowly increasing the barrel/cylinder gap. Whether it does or not, I don't know, but simply worrying about it was enough to get me to stop. I've gotten over seeing the cylinder face being darkened (thankfully). These days, I just make sure all the fouling is removed with Hoppes.
 
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Skippy

New member
I don't shoot lead bullets, so leading has not been an issue. I just like having a clean cylinder face and charging holes.

It's much easier and less time consuming to clean every time after I shoot than to let it build up.

_______________
*I'd give right arm to be ambidextrous*
 
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H

Hawg

New member
Skippy said:
The downside of cleaning my S&W model 60 snub has always been the time it takes to clean the cylinder.

Perhaps I'm anal, but I like having no carbon marks anywhere on stainless, so today I used a .45 cal brush dipped in solvent on the end of a cleaning rod, attached to a cordless drill. A few passes through each chamber really seemed to do the trick.

An I am idiot?

_______________
*I'd give right arm to be ambidextrous*
Click to expand...

I don't think you're an idiot but you're definitely anal. I don't think I've ever cleaned carbon marks off of a cylinder and using a drill for me is a big no no.
 
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Driftwood Johnson

New member
I stopped trying to remove the lead/carbon rings on the front face of a revolver cylinder long ago. As has already been said, they will return as soon as you fire the revolver again. I always say, if you are trying to remove the rings from the front of the cylinder, you don't have enough revolvers. Once you have enough revolvers, you will stop trying to remove the carbon rings.
 
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